In Response to New Facebook Guidelines, I Hereby Declare You Guys Are Dummies

All of a sudden your Facebook wall was full of people posting legalistic declarations of their intent to retain their copyright over images and artwork and everything else. And then you had two options: immediately copy and paste to my own wall? Or look up what’s going on? Of course, way too many of you went with the first option, like you’re all a bunch of social media legal eagles. But as always, Snopes is your definitive source for hoax busting, and its post is harsh but fair.

“The law just doesn’t work that way. Facebook users cannot retroactively negate any of the privacy or copyright terms they agreed to when they signed up for their Facebook accounts,” the site notes. “Moreover, the fact that Facebook is now a publicly traded company… has nothing to do with copyright protection or privacy rights.”

It’s another example of a basic truth: you can’t change the world, or the law, by clicking a button. Beating the system might begin on social networks, but it doesn’t end there.

And of course, protecting your privacy on Facebook is super easy. You don’t have to do anything—you don’t even have to post anything to Facebook. Like, nothing at all.